NEW YORK GIANTS

On May 1, 1883, the New York Gothams welcomed the Boston Beaneaters to the old Polo Grounds, and beat them 7-5 to begin an unbroken string of National League baseball that now spans one-hundred twenty plus years and both coasts of the United States.

Within two years the team became known as the Giants. They would win four pennants in the 1880's, but by the turn of the new century they were floundering. In a seminal decision for the franchise, owner Andrew Freeman hired John McGraw, one of the game's most prominent and pugnacious personalities to manage the team. McGraw ruled with an iron fist for the next thirty years, his bare knuckle brand of baseball winning ten pennants and three World Series.

After a second place finish in 1903, McGraw won his first pennant a year later relying heavily on what would become a legendary pitching rotation led by Christy Mathewson (thirty and thirty-three wins in 1903-04) and Iron Man Joe McGinnity (thirty-one and thirty-five wins). Mathewson was the best pitcher of his era, finishing with three-hundred seventy-three career wins (third most in history) and a career 2.13 ERA over seventeen seasons. He would be one of the five original inductees into the Hall of Fame.

McGraw refused to recognize the American League as co-equal with the National and he would not play their pennant winner (Boston) in the 1904 World Series. But when his pitching staff sparked the Giants to another pennant in 1905, new baseball rules compelled McGraw to participate in the post season championship series. He came fully armed with Mathewson (32-8, league leading 1.27 ERA), McGinnity (22-16, 2.87), Red Ames (twenty-two wins), Dummy Taylor (fifteen) and Hooks Wiltsie (fourteen) and his "Jints" whipped up on Connie Mack's Athletics in five games.

After some uneven seasons, the Giants inaugurated the new Polo Grounds with three consecutive pennants (1911-13) but the American League got a measure of revenge against McGraw for his 1904 slight by winning all three World Series.

McGraw had his Giants roaring into the 1920's with four pennants in a row (1921-24). His roster was packed with future Hall of Famers including George Kelly, Ross Youngs, Dave Bancroft and a young Frankie Frisch, all of whom hit over .300 in each of the four seasons. In the post-season, the Giants won both 1921 and 1922 before the Yanks turned the tables in 1923. The Washington Senators spoiled McGraw's last World Series with a seven game victory in 1924.

McGraw finally called it quits forty games into the 1932 season and was replaced by star first baseman Bill Terry. Terry had been the toast of the town in 1930 when he hit .401 (the last National Leaguer to do so) and his lifetime .341 mark earned him a ticket to Cooperstown.

Terry's team won the pennant and the World Series over Washington in 1933 and they won back-to-back pennants in 1936-37 although both of those teams were buzz sawed in the World Series by the Yankees. The mainstay of Terry's pitching staff was Carl Hubbell, a crafty southpaw with an inhuman screwball. He won twenty games for the first time in 1933 and then did it five straight years.

The Giants also brought up a fresh-faced nineteen year old outfield in 1928 and although he was not physically imposing, Mel Ott would power his way through twenty seasons and finish with five-hundred eleven career home runs, the most ever hit by a National Leaguer to that time. Ott would follow Terry into the manager's chair in 1942.

Although the Giants were not winning, they continued to have a searing, white-hot rivalry with the Brooklyn Dodgers, which was why New York City was shocked when the Dodgers long time manager Leo Durocher agreed to replace Ott in the middle of the 1948 season.

Durocher took the helm and piloted the Giants to two of their greatest seasons. In 1951, the Giants made up a 13½ game deficit on the front running Dodgers by winning thirty-nine of their last forty-seven games, forcing the now-immortal three game playoff with Brooklyn, which the Giants won on Bobby Thompson's three run, bottom of the ninth homer in the deciding game. The Giants were no match for the Yankees in the World Series, but three years later, they were back to sweep a Cleveland team that had set an American League record of one-hundred eleven wins. The Giants have not won a World Series since.

During this time, the Giants brought up the "Say Hey Kid" — Willie Mays and 1954 was his breakout year (forty-one home runs, one-hundred ten runs batted in, .345). By the time he retired in 1973, Mays had three-thousand two-hundred eighty-three hits, six-hundred sixty home runs, a slew of franchise and National League offensive records and he could lay claim to being the greatest center fielder in National League history. Despite Mays as a drawing card, attendance at the crumbling Polo Grounds dwindled, and owner Horace Stoneham did what only a few years earlier seemed unthinkable — he moved the team from New York City to San Francisco in 1957.

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

The Giants have not had the success in California that they enjoyed in New York, winning only three pennants (1962, 1989 and 2002). They did flex a lot of power during their first decade out west. Sluggers like Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Felipe Alou, Jim Ray Hart, Bobby Bonds and Harvey Kuenn slammed baseballs all over Candlestick Park and mound ace Juan Marichal kept the Giants in contention almost every season.

The 1962 team had Mays (forty-nine home runs, one-hundred forty-one runs batted in, .304) and Cepeda (thirty-five home runs, one-hundred fourteen runs batted in, .306) in their prime although they lost a seven-game squeaker of a Series to the Yankees. The 1989 team, managed by Roger Craig and led by Kevin Mitchell's big bat (forty-seven home runs, one-hundred twenty-five runs batted in, .281), were swept by Oakland in a Series remembered more for an earthquake than for the games themselves.

The Giants brought in free agent Barry Bonds and his big 2002 season (forty-six home runs, one-hundred ten runs batted in and a league leading .370) helped the Giants parlay the wild card slot into the franchise's last pennant to date. The Giants again found only disappointment in the World Series. They led the California Angles three games to two, only to blow a late 5-0 lead in Game Six and lose Game Seven 4-1.

Bonds has had nothing but big seasons for the Giants. Excepting his injury-plagued 2005, he had averaged forty-four dingers per year and has hit a total of five-hundred twenty-seven home runs in his twelve seasons there. He set the Major League mark of seventy-three in 2001, and in 2004, he became only the third player to reach seven-hundred for a career. He has an unprecedented seven Most Valuable Player Awards, including four in a row (2000-04).

The Giants are an aptly named franchise, as they have been home for many of the game's titans. With Bonds set for a final assault on Henry Aaron's all-time home run mark of seven-hundred fifty-five, they will soon add another true Giant to their all-time list.